Hi Roger, David B., David T., Maggie, Rob and Group:
On Feb 28. Roger wrote:
> Using this model, I can divide people into some clear groups:
> 1) Many people are closed to new learning and resist dynamic change. They
> would probably not even pick Lila up.
>
> 2) Some people are extremely dynamic and open to experience, but just have not
> come across the MOQ.
>
> 3) A lot of people have read Lila, but have not opened themselves to grow
> dynamically through the experience. They filtered it out. It is too radical.
>
> 4) Some people understand Lila, but then 'close down' to future DQ and
> rationalize everything within their current paradigm. I suspect this is the
> beast which Rob is concerned with.
>
> 5) The desired state is to be open to experience and knowledge. To learn of
> and benefit from the MOQ (which IMHO is a milestone in the Universe's journey
> of understanding itself). This understanding is then used to continue to grow
> dynamically.
>
> I suggest Rob's dilemma is between #4 and # 2. I believe there is more quality
> in #2 than in #4. Of course, I believe we would both agree that #5 is the
> optimal state.
I like your re-framing of Rob's question. It's another example of the fresh
approaches you come up with, a sure sign of Dynamic Quality at work
not to mention an agile mind. I also liked your answer to Maggie's
question which I'm glad Maggie asked because I never had the nerve to.
I also thought that "Mind is contained in static inorganic patterns. Matter
is contained in static intellectual patterns." was a misprint. But now,
thanks to you, it makes sense.
I don't know quite what to say to David Buchanan who Gallager-like
sledgehammered me for asserting that mystical experience is our present
and ordinary state of awareness. (-: I fully agree that there are many
different actual and possible experiences, from Satori to Nirvana to being
in the "zone" to hypnosis to abject fear to somnolence, etc. But all are
"ordinary" in the sense that they are emanate from the single center of
awareness that you are. Being "enlightened" isn't something special.
Alan Watts put it this way:
"All that needs to be experienced for cosmic consciousness is already
present, and anything in excess of this is obstructive and redundant."
Or how about this from Krishnamurti who Rob quoted in another context:
"The real is near, you do not have to search for it; and a man who seeks
truth will never find it. Truth is in what *is*--and that is the beauty of it. But
the moment you conceive it, the moment you seek it, you begin to
struggle; and a man who struggles cannot understand. That is why we
have to be still, observant passively aware.”
David L. Thomas in quoting Steven Batchelor also reminds us that the
Buddha was not a mystic:
"His awakening was not a shattering insight into a transcendent Truth that
revealed to him the mysteries of God. He did not claim to have had an
experience that granted him privileged, esoteric knowledge of how the
universe ticks."
So I think there's quite a bit of evidence, not all from anti-mystic Satan-
invoking fundamentalists, to at least question David's view that mystical
experience is something unique.
Clearly we have disagreement about what mystic experience means,
reflecting I think a general misunderstanding of Eastern philosophies in
the Western world. In any case, please be assured that I do not make
any claim that my interpretation is the correct one or is to be taken as the
last word on a fascinating subject.
Platt
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